1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium used for data storage, and a tape drive device suitable for a tape cassette serving as a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A so-called tape streamer drive is known as a drive device which can record/reproduce digital data in a magnetic tape. Such a tape streamer drive can have a large recording capacity of about several tens to several hundreds giga-bytes although it is dependent on the tape length of the tape cassette serving as media, and thus it is widely used to such an application as to back up data recorded in media such as a hard disc of the computer body or the like. Further, it is suitably used to preserve image data or the like which has a large data size.
As such a tape streamer drive as described above has been proposed one which records/reproduces data by using a 8-mm VTR tape cassette as a recording medium and using a helical scan system based on a rotational head. The tape cassette described above contains a non-volatile memory comprising a memory IC.
For example, manufacturing information of a tape cassette, past use record information of the tape cassette, partition information of a magnetic tape, etc. are beforehand stored as management information in the non-volatile memory. By storing the management information in the non-volatile memory as described above, each of various operations can be more efficiently performed as compared with a case where management information is recorded in a specific area on a magnetic tape.
When the tape cassette is initialized (formatted) to form partitions on the magnetic tape, the non-volatile memory is also initialized to store partition information corresponding to the partitions. When the non-volatile memory is initialized, it is necessary to grasp the storage capacity of the non-volatile memory. Therefore, when the tape cassette is initialized, it is necessary to first perform specific read-in processing/writing processing on the non-volatile memory to thereby search the address corresponding to the storage capacity.
Further, when plural partitions are to be formed on the magnetic tape, partition information on each partition to be formed is required to be stored in the non-volatile memory. In this case, in order to identify whether desired partition information can be stored in the non-volatile memory, it is needed to search the address.
That is, when a tape cassette is formatted, there is a problem that much time is needed because the storage capacity is identified by searching the address of the non-volatile memory.
In order to solve the problem, there is provided a tape drive device comprising: tape drive means for recording or reproducing information into/from a magnetic tape when a tape cassette having the magnetic tape accommodated therein is loaded; memory drive means through which when a memory for recording management information to manage the recording or reproduction of information into/from the magnetic tape is provided to the tape cassette, the management information can be read out or written from/into the memory; means for detecting storage capacity information of the memory which is stored in the memory; and means for recognizing the storage capacity of the memory on the basis of the storage capacity information.
Further, in a recording medium which is provided to the tape cassette and has a memory for recording management information to manage recording or reproduction to the magnetic tape, the storage capacity information of the memory is stored in the memory.
According to the tape drive device of the present invention, the storage capacity information of a memory can be detected from the memory (MIC) which is provided to a tape cassette and records management information to manage recording or reproduction to a magnetic tape accommodated in the tape cassette.
Further, according to the recording medium, the storage capacity information of the memory is recorded as the management information in the memory (MIC) arranged together with the magnetic tape, so that the storage capacity of the memory can be grasped without searching the storage area of the memory at the drive device side.